"Applying national standards to the design of quality teacher preparation programs can be challenging, and yet it is essential work. This guidebook bridges the distance, resulting in confident, efficient, and informed curriculum and program design decisions."
―Sally M. Dobyns, Director
Center for Gifted Education, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
"The new standards in gifted education reflect current thinking in the field. The university guidebook helps me more easily create teacher preparation curriculum that matches the standards and makes defensible program modifications possible."
―Scott Hunsaker, Associate Professor of Educational Foundations and Gifted Education
Utah State University
A breakthrough resource on gifted education course design!
For universities seeking accreditation of their teacher preparation programs in gifted education, the program must be aligned with the ten standards newly approved by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Divided into seventy specific knowledge and skill requirements, these standards represent the best practices in gifted education and identify what teachers of the gifted should know and be able to do.
This guidebook helps university personnel at the undergraduate and graduate levels design or revise gifted education programs that incorporate new professional standards developed by NAGC, CEC, and TAG. In addition to the CD-ROM with an annotated bibliography of the research and literature on which the standards are based, readers will find:
- Techniques for aligning coursework, clinical practice, and field experience with standards
- Sample syllabi that incorporate knowledge and skill benchmarks
- Information on teacher assessment in standards-based university programs
- Details of the challenges associated with the new standards
Using the National Gifted Education Standards for University Teacher Preparation Programs is a key resource for professors, university program designers, and accreditation coordinators guiding the next generation of teachers into exceptional service in gifted education.
Joyce VanTassel-Baska is The Jody and Layton Smith Professor of Education and Executive Director of the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary in Virginia where she has developed a graduate program and a research and development center in gifted education. Formerly she initiated and directed the Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University. She has also served as the state director of gifted programs for Illinois, as a regional director of a gifted service center in the Chicago area, as coordinator of gifted programs for the Toledo, Ohio, public school system, and as a teacher of gifted high school students in English and Latin. She has worked as a consultant on gifted educa-tion in all 50 states and for key national groups, including the U.S. Department of Education, National Association of Secondary School Principals, and American Association of School Administrators. She has consulted internation-ally in Australia, New Zealand, Hungary, Jordan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates. She is past president of The Association for the Gifted of the Council for Exceptional Children, and the Northwestern University Chapter of Phi Delta Kappa. She is currently president-elect of the National Association for Gifted Children. Dr. VanTassel-Baska has published widely including 15 books and over 275 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly reports. Recent books include: Designing and Utilizing Evaluation for Gifted Program Improvement (in press) (with Annie Feng), Content-based Curriculum for Gifted Learners (2003) (with Catherine Little) and Curriculum Planning and Instructional Design for Gifted Learners (2003). She also serves as the editor of Gifted and Talented International, a publication of the World Council on Gifted and Talented. Dr. VanTassel-Baska has received numerous awards for her work, including the National Association for Gifted Children’s Early Leader Award in 1986, the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award in 1993, the Phi Beta Kappa faculty award in 1995, and the National Association of Gifted Children’s Distinguished Scholar Award in 1997. She has received awards from five states – Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, South Carolina, and Illinois – for her contribution to the field of gifted education in those states. She was selected as a Fulbright Scholar to New Zealand in 2000 and a visiting scholar to Cambridge University in England in 1993. Her major research interests are on the talent development process and effective curricular interventions with the gifted. She holds B.A., M.A., M. Ed., and Ed.D. degrees from the University of Toledo.
